Polaroid - The Twilight Twenty-Five
by SparrowNotes24
Summary: A collection of flashes written for The Twilight 25 - Round 8. Various pairings and characters, AH and AU. Each chapter will be a stand alone story, 300 - 500 words in length, based on photo prompts.
1. Chapter 1

**_The Twilight Twenty-Five_**

**_thetwilight25 dot com_**

**_Prompt: #1_**

**_Pen Name: SparrowNotes24_**

**_Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella_**

**_Rating: R_**

**_Word Count: 374_**

**_Photo prompts can be found here:_**  
**_thetwilight25 dot com/round-eight/prompts_**

* * *

The only sound inside the car is the thrum of her heart, the rise and fall of her chest. I'm not sure if I can hear it or if I'm feeling the beat as if it was my own.

I'd watched her shy away from the teacher's over enthusiastic introduction of the new girl. I saw how she folded in on herself like an origami swan, crushed under the expectations of high school.

I had to unwrap her. Every crease held a treasure. A wicked glint in her eyes when she sassed me, a penchant for cheesy romance novels, and a husky laugh that poured over me, thick like honey. I was stuck on her.

The tightest folds, smoothed flat as I searched deeper, revealed marks that wrapped around her arm in a bracelet of purple, violet and pain. A present from her father.

He gifted her many more. Darker. Larger. Their design more extravagant, permanent.

The memories tighten my arms around my girl. She won't break. She's not as fragile as I'd thought.

* * *

"Run away with me, Edward."

I feel my smile dying, jokes from minutes ago fly out the window, replaced by a fraught tension.

"Where would we go?"

"I've saved money, and I can get a job somewhere ... anywhere."

She pleads with her fingertips, pressing deep into my skin. Glittering desperation brims in her eyes, waiting for me to turn her down before she'll let it fall.

I would step off the edge of the world for her.

"When will we go?"

"Tonight."

* * *

As the snow settles, preventing our escape over the state line, we huddle together in the backseat of my rusted Mustang. Two small bags, a meagre reminder of our life. Our body heat dwindles, despite my best efforts, as winter seeps through the cracks.

She clutches me tighter, hazy in her half sleep. "We'll be okay?"

I want to promise her the stars.

"Yes, don't worry. I promise."

Perhaps it's a lie as white as the snow blanketing our hiding place.

Perhaps it's a hope we'll hold onto when opportunities disappear and everything is harder than the frozen ground beneath us.

Whispered words crystallize as soon as they leave my lips. "I love you."

Perhaps that's enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #2**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 474**

* * *

I find her sat on the bench under the Jacaranda tree. Its petals, bright against the clear blue sky, litter the cut grass like confetti.

"May I sit here?" I gesture to the unoccupied space.

I think I see a flicker of recognition across her familiar features, but her tentative smile gives away her uncertainty and falters my own.

"Of course."

Her careworn hands are clasped on her lap, a woollen blanket tucked over her legs—warmth, another necessity, seeping away.

I pull the old photographs from my pocket and untie the string holding them together. It piques her curiosity as I knew it would.

"Is that the Eiffel Tower?"

I nod and hand over the sepia crinkled image.

"How extravagant and beautiful it must be. I've always wanted to go."

Reality sinks in—a hunk of cold metal in my chest, and I nod, unable to speak for the hopelessness clawing up my throat.

As she traces the woman in the foreground, red dress and dark hair ruffled by the Parisian wind, her eyes soften and the time-swept creases deepen. She knows it's familiar but can't see in a bright enough light to be sure. "She looks so happy."

"She was. It was taken after I proposed to her at the top of the tower."

It brings a smile to our faces. I pretend it's because we are both remembering.

"She's very lucky."

A desperate need pull her into my arms and tell her the truth towers over me, but I don't want to scare her. I am a stranger.

We look through other pictures and watch the breeze blow through the tendrils of a willow until sleep steals her away, and I steal the chance to watch my wife.

She's dropped her memories along the years like breadcrumbs. I allow myself to hope she can follow them in her dreams to find her way back.

"Edward." The familiar sleep-laden lilt wrapped around my name, lights up my heart with a fragile hope. It fills my eyes until the garden is a blurry watercolor.

She cups my face, her thumb catching my tears. "Why are you crying?"

I entwine our hands, fingers knotted and skin weathered by life spent at each other's side. "I'm happy, my love. That's all."

We stay this way as the shadows of the sun's departure creep across the lawn and she drifts off again. I don't know where her mind will be when she wakes, so I press a kiss to her paper-thin cheek and whisper my love so it'll be carried into her dreams.

I try not to look back as I walk away, for fear I will turn to stone if she doesn't recognize me. The unbearable weight of loneliness is crushing enough.

Till death do us part ... sometimes life can be a crueller fate.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #3 (girl lying on empty road)**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Alice / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 420**

* * *

"What the hell, Bella?" Alice calls over from her vigil under the dappled shade of the pines. Her stubbornness and curiosity clash and irritate her. It makes me smile.

"I'm living a little." The long stretch of road hums with the heat, glistening as if the tar is melting.

I can hear the exasperated puff leave her mouth. The only air in a thousand mile radius. Deep summer's stolen the breeze. "You're crazy."

"It's the heat wave." Asphalt scorches the backs of my legs. I press them down for as long as I can bear, relishing the burn. "Makes us do crazy things. So you told me."

She scrambles to her feet, and I close my eyes until her shadow flashes behind my eyelids, quirking my lips when she yanks on my arms. I resist her attempts to lift me up, pulling her down on top of me instead.

"Is this because of Jasper? Because I said he was a daredevil?" she asks.

Her thighs grip around my waist when I try to wriggle free from under her, irritated her arrow's soared straight and true. Unrelenting, I run my fingers underneath the rough denim cuffs of her shorts, digging in her thighs until white crescents appear.

She grabs my hands and forces them over my head. "Stop it."

I try not to laugh, but her eyes, the color of the deepest river, are too mischievous, too tempting. I want to jump into them, disappear in their blue. She could easily drag me under. "Bite me."

She does, slow pressure into the soft muscle of my shoulder, marking me. Despite the hot wet trail of her tongue over the indents, I shiver and arch up toward her sun.

The barren road and curved sky fade with every kiss dragged up my throat, until her lips hover at my ear. "I heard heat-waves make people crazy jealous."

She can read me better than the crisscrossed map we followed to get lost out here. We'd only a burnt out engine and fraying tempers to show for it.

Gravel is pressed into my skin in a pattern of pressure and surrender as she dips closer, scents of smokey bonfires and sea salt tangled in her hair. I return the bite, trapping her bottom lip until blood rushes back when I let go. She looks like she's been eating cherries.

"I'm not jealous."

"Good." Her murmur is lost and twisted between our tongues, until a rumble shakes the road beneath us and bursts our bubble.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #5**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 500**

* * *

"Jesus, they're giving me belly ache." I pick the label off my beer and try to avoid the teeth-rotting display from Rosalie and Em.

Edward smirks, balancing the ice-cold bottle on his lips before taking a swig, his Adam's apple bobbing with every gulp. "They're in love."

"I wish they'd go be in love somewhere else."

"You're such a cynic." His eyes crease into the burnt-orange sunset when he laughs at me. I try not to smile, but my traitorous lips curl at the husky sound. I don't try to deny my cynicism. It's a trait I've cultivated with seeds of doubt from a great number of doomed relationships.

Rosalie squeals as Em straddles her on the ground, peppering kisses over her face. I turn to Edward with my eyebrow raised victoriously.

He holds his hands up in surrender, his index finger wrapped loosely around the empty bottle. "Okay, okay. Point taken. Should we stop them?"

His mouth quirks into a sliver of a smile as he eyes up the ice box. If it wasn't for the rising chorus of cicadas and squeals of puppy love, I would hear cogs whirring in his mind. "Shall I do the honors?"

"It's your death wish."

...

I perch on a log avidly watching as Edward skilfully erects my tent. My protestations about the dangers of blind dates had fallen from my lips when Rosalie had introduced us, but stubbornness is my strong suit, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let her get away with setting me up.

As if by magic, the devil disguised as a blonde, bouncy cheerleader appears by my side. "You might want to make it a little less obvious, Bella."

"What?" My whisper is lost in the hiss of the paltry fire at my feet.

"That you fancy him. I had to do a double take to check you weren't drooling."

I glare at her, hoping the flames dancing in my eyes make it menacing. She laughs.

"All I'm saying is play it cool. He's been watching you too. A lot."

I tamp down the flicker of attraction that flares, shooing her away back to her own tent. She bounds back to her mate, giggles and love-hearts.

Edward's face is shaded by the dusky night, but it doesn't hide the way his cheek dimples when he lazily lifts one side of his mouth into a grin. "You wanna go and get some wood?"

A grunt from the nearby tent shoots me to my feet. "Let's go. Do we need to drive?"

He gestures into the darkening woods. "There's plenty around here if you're not too creeped out. I've got a torch."

I shudder at the deep black swallowing the trees. "A torch. That should scare off the mountain lions, bears, snakes, and spiders—"

Edward grabs my hand, yanking me close. Flames of attraction lick across my skin when I feel the warmth of his body, firm and reassuring, pressed against my side. "I got you."


	5. Chapter 5

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #6 (Castle)**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 500**

* * *

The wind throws icy rain against the leaded windows of the castle, rattling them in their ancient frames, drowning out Mrs. Cope's voice.

"Don't you think he's gorgeous?" Alice drops back from our classmates to whisper in my ear. Her attention set on Jasper Whitlock, who's jostling for position at the front of the group.

"He's an idiot, Alice."

Her smile turns petulant. "You're just jealous."

She sticks her tongue out, screeching when a loud clap of thunder shudders through the ground.

I hang back, peering into a grand cabinet filled with artefacts, counting the seconds with a nervous excitement; waiting for the flash of lightening that heralds the next crack from the steel-grey skies.

There's something about storms that put me on edge. Makes the hairs on my arms stand on end, charged with fear. Yet rather than cowering in shelter, the scent of wet earth urges me to step from the protection of walls and rooftops to stand in the heart of the raging winds. Maybe I'm crazy, but storms make me feel alive.

I smile at the thought, watching my lips curl in the glass. Lightning blinds me for a second and when my eyes refocus, the changed reflection shocks my breath to ice. A face hovers over my shoulder.

The intruder's dark eyes fix on mine—his striking appearance stutters my pulse with fear and something exponentially more stupid.

He doesn't move, despite the booms of thunder, his jaw set in a hard line. I spin on my heel, clasping my hand over my chest as shivers peel over my skin at the empty corridor behind me.

The faint scent of fresh pine and earthy woods are all that remain, out of place amidst the ancient musty smells of the castle.

_"Bella."_So quiet it could be a draft stealing through cracks in the old rock walls.

_"Bella."_

This time I turn to the sound. It's coming from a wooden door, barely opened a crack. Cold tendrils of air wrap around my ankles, yet instead of running in fear, I step toward the dark.

Damp invades my senses as I descend a spiral staircase with narrow, rough-hewn walls.

The soft but firm voice becomes more insistent. Its tenor lures me deeper into a dimly lit room.

"Hello?" My voice is weak but my heart is a steady pound in my ears. "Is anyone there?"

I sense him behind me before he speaks. "You came."

His face is shadowed as he moves to towers over me. Breath like a freezing mist fans across my face, fluttering my eyes shut. I feel his icy fingertips against my collarbone.

"Who are you?" I want to reach out and trace the lines of his face. Beautiful and brutal in its angles. Terrifying and heart-breaking in his expression.

Finally he steps into the light; flames flicker in his eyes. Pools of bloody crimson.

His lips twist into a cruel curve revealing teeth, glistening, and perfectly deadly.

"I've been waiting for you."


	6. Chapter 6

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #7 **

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 500**

* * *

Clad in black and hoods that shadow, he was my night, and I was his day.

Living on the edge, under boardwalks and down round alleys, he chose the streets over his own home. A home in name, but hell in nature.

Everyone in town looked down their noses, turned heads and backs. None more so than my parents.

Bad influence, menace, no good. I'd heard the litanies over and over.

They became his label, his tags.

Only I knew how wrong they were. He was the dark where I shone brightest.

I was a good girl, an angel, a sweetheart. Unhappy, ignored, invisible in full sunshine.

He was lonely, unwanted and cast out, but he taught me—there cannot be light without darkness.

I met him on a night my father's ambitions became too much, my mother's support not enough. Family dinners were silences thick with disappointment, their bitterness tainting the food. My academic failings soured the cream my father poured into his coffee. I had to escape.

I found him, legs dangling over the edge of the bridge. His laces loose, jeans frayed, tanned hands hidden deep inside pockets. My flimsy, obligatory knee-length skirts and buttercup yellow blouses didn't stave off the chill of the moon rising.

We sat side by side in silence, both so similar under different lights. He saw the shivers I tried to hide. Pulling his black sweater off, he handed it over without a word.

I clutched the dark fabric in my hands, warmth seeping through the cotton turning blue fingers red.

"Don't get cold." His voice was low and soft, a disappearing mist into the night.

I pulled it on, clutching it to my neck to get closer to its smells of spice and fall leaves. Him.

I studied his face in the moonlight. He pretended not to study mine.

We didn't swap words that first night, or the next, but slowly he became mine. I became his.

He tucked our hands into his pockets, pulling me to his side to chase chills, letting me press my ice-cold nose to the pulse at his throat. He stole his first kiss on that bridge. Only the stars saw how willingly I gave it away, and months later, the fall moon hovered as he pressed me into the sand of the river bank. His skin was my blanket, his words and caresses my home.

They found out eventually. Said it wasn't proper behaviour for someone like me.

They didn't know me at all. Yet, he knew every stitch of my soul, the curve of my face, the taste of my lips, the color of my dreams and the shadows of my nightmares.

How innocent I was to think they couldn't keep us apart. Pull me from midnight, push him from dawn. They scattered our love into a wind that chilled my hope to the bone.

Now, I sit a thousand miles away from our bridge, desperate for the chance to escape into his darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #8 (Cosmopolitans lined up on a bar)**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 500**

* * *

"Do you mind if I freshen up?" I'm already heading to the bathroom, my heart-beat replaced with a hummingbird, before he answers.

"Go ahead."

I send him a seductive smile—the action rusty and unfamiliar. I feel ridiculous, closing the door before he sees the cranberry flush on my cheeks.

A decadent mirror hangs above the vanity. It probably cost thousands of dollars, but it still reflects the unsympathetic truth; dark hair frizzed by the humid air on our walk from the club. Under my eyes, dark smudges of mascara slip away with my confidence.

"What are you doing?" I reprimand my reflection, wincing at the acoustics exaggerating my indecision.

"Bella?" His voice shocks me to slap my hand over my mouth, stifling a giggle. Why my brain thinks giggling is a suitable response for a thirty year old, I don't know. "Are you okay?"

I turn on the tap, hoping to hide any other unintentional outbursts. "Yes. I'm fine. Just a second."

I anxiously reach to twist the gold ring around my finger. A habit I can't shift despite the absence of the band, and the fact the ink has been drying on the divorce papers for a year.

"Come on, you can do this." I whisper. Candy-pink liquid fills my veins, allowing me to live this dream for a little longer.

I straighten my too-little black dress, and take a deep breath, pulling open the door.

Edward's sitting on the edge of the bed, tie loosened and top button undone, revealing a sliver of tanned skin which makes the nerves return.

I hover outside the bathroom, unsure of my next move. As if sensing my indecision, he smiles, dropping his head slightly like he wants to hide it, and holds his hand out. I step closer, lured by the way his lips curve and how his eyes, I now see are the colour of sea-glass, crease.

I'm brazen enough to only stop when I feel the material of his slacks either side of my thighs; my fingers, working without hesitation, slide the knot of his tie down. The whisper of silk against cotton seems deafening in anticipation.

His thumbs brush the soft skin behind my knees, but don't stray.

"Bella, you don't have to—"

I see the sincerity in his eyes, see that my ploy to be a brazen, confident woman hasn't fooled him. He can see me—nervous, aroused, scared; tired of feeling invisible and desperate to feel wanted.

It's all I need. I trace my fingertips across the day-worn bristles of his jaw, and dip my lips to taste the mint on his lips. I let him slide the straps of my dress over my shoulders until it pools around my feet.

He pulls my knees until they collapse and I'm sat astride him, anchored with fingers tangled in his disorderly hair, his lips on my collarbone.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?"

Until I saw myself in his eyes, I had no idea.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**

**thetwilight25 dot com**

**Prompt: #19 (misty cemetery)**

**Pen Name: SparrowNotes24**

**Pairing/Character(s): Edward / Bella**

**Rating: R**

**Word Count: 499**

* * *

A rolling mist crept and crawled its way through the headstones, concealing the raggedy grass of the unkempt cemetery.

The moon was a dirty smudge in the sky, barely throwing light to guide me to my destination; still I strode with determination, carelessly walking on top of those who'd met their unfortunate fate in this dreary town.

It was eerily quiet; only the occasional flapping of wings from high in the trees interrupted the blank silence. It would change soon enough. He would be coming for me now.

I hastened my footsteps, stumbling over uneven ground and crooked tree-roots. I needed to get there before he arrived. My last chance to prove a point—to reason with him. In reality, it was his last chance before I took matters into my own hands.

The gleaming edge of the knife slicing through my skin, blood blooming like a field of poppies, was an image that became clearer every day.

I found the headstone, softened by limey moss that concealed the letters carved into my heart.

My plan was to lie down, legs stretched, arms tucked in, mirroring the position of the decaying corpse six feet below. I'd curled into myself before the second hand completed its twirl, tears of grief scorched to be freed.

The proximity to my mother, despite the light stolen from her eyes, and the knowledge Edward was close, calmed my frantic heart.

His arrival was silent but somehow deafening. I was aware of him the moment he stepped from the dark woods onto hallowed ground. My body reacting to him as it always did, like an electric storm.

"What the hell are you doing?" He didn't have to raise his voice; the gravelly anger constricting his throat was enough. "You know how dangerous it is for you to be out here."

I allowed him to pull me up until my mother's headstone supported my back. It's chill seeping through my thin jacket and causing me to shiver.

"I wanted you to see me here, Edward. This is where I'll be if you don't—"

"No, Bella. No. I won't listen to this." He ripped his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. In another time, I would have laughed at him, stepped onto my tiptoes to straighten it back to its unruly state, but instead, I shook my head.

"You _will_ listen." The clear determination in my voice forced him to crouch on the floor beside me, tilting my chin with his finger until I could look into his eyes. Burnished even in the dark.

"This conversation is over." His stony expression caused my heart to falter, but my mind was strong. Over that I still had some control.

Leaning forward, I pressed my ice-blue lips against his red-cold, and slipped the knife from my pocket, sliding it across my throat: unstitching my skin, opening my vein. Hot blood bubbled to the surface.

I felt his teeth sink into my skin before I could breathe.


End file.
